Oculus Rift headsets should work as normal again

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc., demonstrates an Oculus Rift virtual reality (VR) headset and Oculus Touch controllers as the gives a demonstration during the Oculus Connect 3 event in San Jose, California, U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016. Facebook Inc. is working on a new virtual reality product that is more advanced than its Samsung Gear VR, but doesn't require connection to a personal computer, like the Oculus Rift does. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

If you own an Oculus Rift headset, good news: It should work as normal again. The Facebook-owned division was caught off guard yesterday when a number of units suddenly stopped working. The problem — much to Oculus’ embarrassment — was an expired security certificate that checks whether the software you own has come directly from the Oculus Store. The company worked through the night on a fix and finally it’s ready as a patch from the Oculus website. It sounds simple enough to install; just download the file, select Repair and then relaunch the Oculus app. That’s the promise, anyway — let’s hope the problem is finally sorted now.

Nate Mitchell, co-founder of Oculus, confirmed that the problem was fixed by midnight pacific time. He also apologised on behalf of the company to affected Rift owners: “This was a mistake on our end,” he said in a tweet. “Folks impacted by today’s downtime will be provided with an Oculus store credit. More details to follow soon. Thanks again for everyone’s patience as we worked through this one.” In a customer email, Oculus confirmed that the store credit will be $15, or an equivalent sum if you live outside the US.